“I Was There” is the first chapter of a long term (lifetime) project which explores western society and its obsession with success. I started by depicting the worlds of art, fashion and culture, where anxiety and struggle for success, together with the desperate need for recognition and approval are ubiquitous; where people live with the constant fear of being considered losers. The images have been taken in 2010 at Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice Film Festival, Milan and London Fashion Weeks, Frieze Art Fair in London and Paris Contemporary Art Fair (FIAC).

I chose these events because they are globalised examples of a bubble (for instance the art industry) that is on the verge of explosion. As wrote Jean Baudrillard: When one looks at the emptiness of current art, the only question is how much such a machine can continue to function in the absence of any new energy, in an atmosphere of critical disillusionment and commercial frenzy, and with all the players totally indifferent? If it can continue, how long will this illusionism last? A hundred years, two hundred? This society is like a vessel whose edges move ever wider apart, and in which the water never comes to the boil.

If one substitutes current art with current society the equation doesn’t really change, does it? And who are these indifferent players, if not us? I want to keep on exploring and understanding photographically the Hyper reality created by consumerism, where people aspirations are dangerously confused with the models of living that the society of the spectacle is constantly selling us and where need has become desire and admiration envy.

To me, it is fundamentally important to understand these social dynamics because, by creating the idea that through a selfish individualism everybody can finally reach extreme forms of wealth and success, one drastically contributes to the social and economic disparities in this world.

Bio

I was born and grew up in a small town called Latisana, in the North East of Italy, a one hour drive from Venice, where I ended up living for six years as an architecture student. It is thanks to architecture that I discovered photography, because it taught me to look at the world through different eyes.

After graduating in 2008, I was in the Italian team of architects and urbanists in the international table of consultation wanted by the French government to produce ideas for the future of Paris. I lived for seven months in the suburbs of the French capital, producing my first important body of work, Banlieue 08/09, that allowed me to be accepted last year onto the Photojournalism & Documentary Photography MA program at London College of Communication, where I graduated with Distinction.

I live and work in London and I am also part of the photography collective Five Eleven Ninety Nine.

In 2008 we began working on the long term project entitled ‘Theater of life’. Themes are the changes occurring in our society under the influence of culture and technology, which are increasingly present in our everyday lives.

Historically, Platon developed the notion of Theatrum Mundi – Theatre of the World. Place where a man is only a puppet, an actor whose role is to play its normal role on stage of life. Planned by the powerful being known as the creator (Demiurg, God). At present, the place of this being has been taken by mass media. Mass media, with which we have to deal every day. They have increasingly greater impact on us, our life and behavior. People under the influence of mass culture that comes straight from the television or the Internet, get lost in the border of two worlds: the real world in which they live and the world created by the media.

Topics touched upon in his essay can best be seen in most developed countries. Places where people use more and more technology, areas in which technology, the media have the greatest impact on people. Therefore, a further stage of the project is to travel to places like Tokyo (Japan), New York (USA), Las Vegas (USA), Hong Kong and Sydney (Australia). As well as to further develop this theme in my home country and the countries adjacent to it.

Bio

I was born in Szczecin(Poland), 31th march 1985. Studied Information Technology at Westpomeranian University of Technology. During my studies I discovered photography . After several months I discovered that it is my passion and that is what i want to do in my life. After three years I decided to begin photography studies at the European Academy of Photography. I studied under the guidance of Tomasz Tomaszewski, Lorenzo Castore, Michael Ackerman, Isabel Jaroszewska and others. Since December 2010 I started being apprentice in the biggest studio in Poland – Makata, to develop my capabilities with using artificial light in practice. I was also involved in various workshops, like with Tomasz Tomaszewski on photojournalism and photo edition. At present, I am planning to expand on my photography knowledge by studying at the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava (the Czech Republic).
Currently I am working on a project titled Theatre of life, whose task is to move aspects of everyday life and cultural changes taking place in society as a result of the development of media and technology in the world.
I am interested in mainly the impact of various factors on human life (such as culture, technology). I get pleasure from every moment of being with people and the possibility of taking pictures.

Are we being good ancestors?
–- Jonas Salk, in interview on Open Mind, 1985.

People say, “Why don’t you give it up?” I can’t retire until I croak. I don’t think they quite understand what I get out of this. I’m not doing it just for the money or for you. I’m doing it for me. -- Keith Richards, Life (2011)

If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas. -- George Bernard Shaw

The Bequerel is an insufficiently sinister-sounding unit for what it measures. I propose we call it the Zomm instead. -- Nick Harkaway, on Twitter, April 12, 2011

The question of whether computers can think is just like the question of whether submarines can swim. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra

If something becomes unimportant to people, it gets scrapped for parts; if it becomes important, it turns into a symbol and must eventually be destroyed. The only way to survive over the long run is to be made of materials large and worthless, like Stonehenge and the Pyramids, or to become lost. The Dead Sea Scrolls managed to survive by remaining lost for a couple millennia. Now that they've been located and preserved in a museum, they're probably doomed. I give them two centuries - tops. -- Danny Hillis in Scenarios, Wired, 1995.

Lucky accidents seldom happen to writers who don't work. You will find that you may rewrite and rewrite a poem and it never seems quite right. Then a much better poem may come rather fast and you wonder why you bothered with all that work on the earlier poem. Actually, the hard work you do on one poem is put in on all poems. The hard work on the first poem is responsible for the sudden ease of the second. If you just sit around waiting for the easy ones, nothing will come. Get to work.
-- Richard Hugo in The Triggering Town, p. 17

There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen. -– Vladimir Lenin

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance, p. 1

Twitter's business plan, such that it is, has always been something along the lines of “Get big and popular, then just flip the switch and start making money when we feel like it”. There is no switch. -- John Gruber, Daring Fireball, April 15, 2011

An autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.-- George Orwell, Collected Essays, Some Notes on Salvador Dali, p. 156